James Tytler

“ Thus, for a great number of ages, mankind had been preparing themselves for the dreadful pestilence which was about to ensue. Whatever infection could be communicated to the air by multitudes of carcases rotting above ground had been done in an ample manner. Whatever debility could be communicated to the human frame by famine, exposure to the inclemency of weather, by fatigue, terror, grief, and every thing that can render life miserable, had also been communicated by the most powerful means. ”

“ It is only by little and little that the fibre recovers its irritability. This truth, I dare venture to say, is as new as it is striking. It unfolds a vast number of phenomena hitherto inexplicable.” Here we have nothing but the pompous declaration of a fact already well known; viz. that not only a fibre, but the whole body, may be in a state of temporary insensibility, and yet recover either of itself or by the use of external means. How many people have fallen into a syncope, and yet recovered! How many limbs have become paralytic, and in time recovered their sense and motion! ”

“ It is indeed too common for people to laugh at what they cannot answer; but if we consider the instantaneous and inexplicable action of the poison of serpents, and in how little time they produce a mortal disorder, or even death itself; when we consider that contagion is only a volatile poison, and that it for the most part takes up an incomparably longer time to bring on death than the bites of some venomous animals; we cannot be surprised that a quantity of this volatile matter inconceivably less than that of animal poison should be capable of bringing on the disorder ”

“ I now began to experience some of the dreadful symptoms which are, I believe, peculiar to fevers in Turky and Arabia; a sensation of dread and horror, totally unconnected with the fear of death; for, while the patient is most afflicted with this symptom, it is for the most part accompanied with a strong desire to put an end to his existence. The agony from the heat of the body is beyond conception. I have heard some of my fellow sufferers roar hideously under the violence of the pain. ”

“ I will begin with the most common fevorous disease, which accompanies, in a manner, all diseases whatever. For there are two sorts of fevers, one that is promiscuous, and common to all, and is called the plague; the other, by reason of unhealthful diet, is peculiar only to such as use that diet; but of both these kinds of fevers the air is the sole author and cause, for the common fever or plague happens alike to all, because they all breathe the same air; and it is certain that the like air, being alike mingled in like bodies, must beget like fevers. ”

“ Some of the natives regret the old stinks and nastiness; as they pretend that the air of Madrid is so subtil as to require a proper mixture of grosser effluvia, to prevent its pernicious effects upon the constitution. The extremes of cold and heat are astonishing in this place, and the winds so searching, that all the Spaniards wear leathern under waistcoats, to preserve their chests; for they pervade every other kind of clothing. ”

“ Thus vast multitudes are reduced to want, to despair, and rendered a prey to grief, terror, and every depressing passion of the human mind; they are exposed to every inclemency of the weather; to the scorching heats of the day, and the chilling damps of the night ”

“ Here the chime runs on the word excitability, which is not defined. If we call this property life, then we are only informed, that, as life is more or less vigorous, the body enjoys a greater or smaller degree of health; which we know without any medical instructor. If, instead of the accumulation and exhaustion of excitability, we take the original doctrine of excitement and debility laid down by Dr. Brown himself, we are nothing better. The whole theory is lost for want of the definition of a single word. As long as excitability remains an unknown property, we can explain nothing by it. ”

“ Shall we find it strange that those infected haunts should shed forth in the morning a mephitic air, capable of suffocating the most robust and vigorous men? Shall we wonder that those who breathe this pestilential gaz are suddenly seized with a fever? in itself perhaps not very dangerous, if it were treated in a suitable manner. But what is their method of treating it? They do not even know the name of ptisan, still less the use of anodynes, nor that of salt of nitre, nor of camphor, so proper to prevent putridity. ”

“ Lind, Dr. Clarke, Dr. Mead, Dr. Sydenham, Dr. Fordyce, Dr. Russel, &c. agree that not only the plague, but every kind of fever, is infectious; when we know from the analogy of nature that contagion may exist; when we know that there certainly are powers in nature able to produce it; is all this to be thrown aside merely on the strength of a theory, and a theory too which can never be proved? for it is impossible to prove the non-existence of any thing, much less the impossibility of its existence. The lives of mankind are too precious to be sported with on philosophical theories ”

“ How can any man determine from the mere smell of sheep’s blood taken out of the body of the animal, and mixed with a poisonous vapour, what is the composition of human blood in the living body? In the case of any substance suspected to contain elastic air, the air-pump will always afford an experimentum crucis. But we know that venous blood does not yield any elastic vapour by the pump: if instead of blood, however; we should fill a portion of vein with beer, cyder, or other fermented liquor, it would instantly discover, by its swelling up, that it really contained air in an elastic state. ”

“ But, before we proceed to consider what diseases may be produced by climate alone, it is proper to discuss the question, how far man is naturally subject to diseases of any kind? Many, no doubt, will be apt to suppose this a very absurd question; for as man is now, by nature, subject to death, it seems to follow, that he is also naturally subject to disease, as the means of bringing on death. But, however plausible this may appear, experience shows, that disease and death are not always connected. Many people die of mere old age ”

“ The misfortune is, that though a person should go, without fear, among the sick, though he should constantly take a medicine, and should never have the distemper, yet we cannot say whether the medicine did preserve him or not. Were it possible to know the particular constitution of the body which disposed some to resist the attack of the disease, attempts might be made to bring the constitutions of others to the same standard, but unfortunately our ignorance here is so great, that any attempt to alter the constitution of the body has generally proved unfortunate even in other diseases. ”

“ Fontana has made more than six thousand experiments upon the poison of the viper; he employed more than three thousand vipers, and caused to be bit more than four thousand animals; and the conclusion he drew after this truly enormous number of observations was, that the poison of the viper kills all animals, and produces the disease by its action on the blood. But why did Mr. Fontana neglect to make the decisive experiment, the experimentum crucis of Bacon? It is well known that frogs, and many animals with cold blood, live a long time without the heart, and entirely deprived of blood. ”

“ But, when the light falls upon a body capable of allowing it to enter its substance, at the same time that it cannot get out without difficulty, it is plain that the force of the fluid will be exerted in order to overcome that difficulty; the body will be expanded in all directions; the fluid will be thrown out in the same manner, and the more that the internal action of the light prevails over that power by which the parts of the body cohere, the more will the phenomena of heat be perceptible. ”

“ Hence, unwilling to believe that their favourite earth could give origin to an evil so dreadful as the pestilence, they imported the seeds of this calamity from the more unhealthful climate of heaven!! ”

“ Can we at all times promise that, with the utmost care that can be taken, the circumstances of a place may not be such as to give activity to an imported contagion? In the nature of things it is impossible that the docks, wharves, streets and alleys of a large town can be absolutely clean. It is equally impossible that all men can be advised to be temperate, cleanly, and neat in their lodgings ”

“ Hence it appears that the plague is much easier avoided than epidemic disorders. The more abundant the contagious matter is, the further probably is the power of its infection carried. This is the reason that the mere separation of the sick and suspected from the healthy is so much more efficacious in destroying it at its commencement than at a later period. To restrain epidemics within bounds is impossible; but with the contagion of the plague, it is certain that it can be confined by art to a narrow spot. ”

“ Thus did the pestilence first give rise to those iniquitous acts which prevailed more and more in Athens. For every one was now more easily induced openly to do what for decency they did only covertly before. They saw the strange mutability of outward condition; the rich entirely cut off, and their wealth pouring suddenly on the indigent and necessitous; so that they thought it prudent to catch hold of speedy enjoyments and quick gusts of pleasure; persuaded that their bodies and their wealth might be their own merely for the day. ”

“ Here we have a still wider field for speculation than even the schools have given us; for the Doctor ought to remember that the influence of a planet, producing a disease, is as truly contagion as the effluvia of a dunghill; and if we have a wide field to traverse when tracing it through the earth, we have one infinitely more extensive in pursuing it through the heavens. But we may be assured that planetary influence does not produce diseases ”

“ From all that has been said, then, we may conclude, that none of the obvious properties of the atmosphere, or of any constituent part of it, or of any variation in the proportion of its ingredients, can be accounted the cause of epidemic diseases; that the hidden constitution of the atmosphere may with probability be attributed to the agency of the electric fluid, and that by the action of this secret cause, along with the other more obvious properties of the air, such as heat or cold, moisture or dryness, &c. the human body may be so predisposed to diseases, that they will readily break forth ”

“ Let us add to all those causes of infection the dead dogs, cats, pigs, and rats, which are thrown into the common sinks and docks, the rotten fish, and the privies, which in several houses, especially at New York, are nothing but tubs, which are emptied weekly on the sea shore, and we shall have less reason to wonder at the putrid exhalations which issue on the eastern part of New York, and at Philadelphia on that part contiguous to the Delaware, and which are capable of infecting the whole atmosphere, and to impair the health of those who live in it. ”

“ Thus the infection of the small-pox is the same all over the world. The variolous matter will never produce the measles in any country, nor will the typhus produce a pleurisy. The plague manifests itself to be the same distemper in all its various degrees of malignity, though even this dreadful disease is sometimes so mild that it does not confine the patient to his bed. There must therefore be some certain constitution in the nature of the cause which produces such and such diseases, as certainly as in the seed of particular vegetables, which gives to each its proper appearance and shape. ”

“ The dreadful state of the empire in the time of Gratian is thus described by St. Jerom: “The whole country, from Constantinople to the Julian Alps, has been swimming these twenty years in Roman blood. Scythia, Thrace, Macedon, Dardania, Dacia, Thessaly, Achaia, both Epiruses, Dalmatia, both Pannonias, are filled with Goths, Sarmatians, Quadians, Alans, Huns, Vandals, Marcomans, &c. whose avarice nothing has escaped, whose cruelty has been felt by persons of all ranks, ages and conditions.” ”

“ We shall here only take notice that the heat of the body is almost universally allowed to proceed from the lungs. It has likewise been demonstrated, that the air does in fact contain an incredible quantity of heat, even when it appears to us to be extremely cold. A certain proportion of this heat is separated from it every time we breathe; and if, either by the mixture of other fluids with the air we breathe, or by any change in the organization of the body itself, a greater or smaller proportion of heat should be communicated to the blood, disease must ensue. ”

“ McLean will not deny that a person debilitated by certain causes is more liable to be seized with typhus fever than one who is not. What does this proceed from, but that the body of the one is prepared for the disease, is constitutionally disposed to receive it, or has an idiosyncrasy of habit disposing to it, which the other has not? It is true, that unless we point out the circumstances which constitute this idiosyncracy we do nothing; but Mr. McLean’s scheme, of resolving every thing into excitability, would forever prevent us from doing so. ”

“ Black’s experiments, that, when the vapour of water is condensed in the body, a great quantity of heat must be thus communicated to it. In confined air therefore there is a diminution of the oxygen which produces heat; but there is an augmentation of the fixed air and of the aqueous moisture which increases it; so that, on the whole, the balance must be considered as in favour of the augmentation of heat in the human body; not to mention the quantity of sensible heat continually added to the atmosphere by that which evaporates from the body. ”